


with the force of a great typhoon

by myriddin



Series: ASoIaF Mulan AU [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7225069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriddin/pseuds/myriddin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anon prompt from Tumblr: Arthur/Sansa, Mulan AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with the force of a great typhoon

**Author's Note:**

> To make this work, we need Ned and Cat’s family to be out of the spotlight enough for everyone and their brother to not immediately know the general ages and faces of the Stark kids, so…suppose a different ancient First Men house had managed to defeat the Starks and reign supreme over the North.

Sansa Stark’s childhood was a happy one, raised in quiet contentment in a modest keep with loving parents who loved one another in return. Rhaegar Targaryen ruled peacefully from the Iron Throne, House Frost held the North with the firm, fair hands they were known for.

The Starks were House Frost’s most powerful bannermen, the strength and size of Winterfell only dwarfed by the massive castle of Frostfall, towering tall and daunting above the cliffs of Cape Kraken. Though Sansa’s father was a son of that powerful house, he was only a second son, so unlike his older brother in temperament and personality it was a blessing when Eddard saved the life of Lord Frost during the Greyjoy Rebellion and was granted a keep of his own in return. Wolf’s Point kept guard over the Stony Shore, far enough from Winterfell to give all involved relief from the fracas of fraternal competition.

Her parents’ marriage was a love match, a defiance of tradition and duty that extended down to their children. With the keep’s proximity to the fishing villages so often the subject of Ironborn raids, Sansa had started learning to seat a horse and hold a sword nearly from the time she began walking. But unlike Arya, Sansa still obediently learned and excelled at the lady’s education her mother sought to impart on her, leaving Sansa with much more in common with Dacey Mormont than wild little Arya.

But Arya was her first thought when Aegon ~~Mopotis~~ Blackfyre and the Golden Company landed in the Stormlands and the conscription order came down for every household, noble and lowborn alike, to produce an able body for the army. Bran, barely twelve years old, and her father, left lame in one leg after suffering injury during the Rebellion, were a close second to her mind, a mind already made up before she’d left the solar where her father had read the royal letter aloud.

It was almost too easy to implement her plan with the entirety of the keep in a flustered frenzy over the royal summons. While her mother plead with her father to raven Uncle Brandon and have Uncle Benjen sent in his place, Sansa was saying her farewells to her siblings under the guise of tucking them in for the night- even Arya, fourteen and flowered, hardly in need of coddling. Her little sister eyed her suspiciously throughout the entire happening, but grudgingly accepted Sansa’s attentions. A lump rose up in Sansa’s throat as she pressed kisses to the brows of her siblings and packmates, but she swallowed back her tears each time behind a tremulous smile she let fall with each door she closed behind her.

While ravens flew between Wolf’s Point, Bear Island, and Deepwood Motte, Sansa was ghosting around the keep with the invisibility and ease of one who knew every crook and cranny like the back of their hand, making her way to the larder and the armory. Within a few hours, her saddlebags were packed, a note had been left for her parents in her chambers, and Sansa was creeping her way down to the barracks.

A keep the size of Wolf’s Point was only capable of garrisoning twenty men, only eight of which were cavalry. It would takes days for the levies to be raised from the farms and holdfasts surrounding the keep, giving her time and cover to get away, but she would need a little help to get to that point.

Jory Cassel, Captain of the Guard, reacted much the way she thought he would, incredulous and immediately denying of her requests. “You’ve gone mad, my lady, if you think I can allow you to do this.”

“I’m not looking for permission, Jory. I’m looking for you to help me save my father’s life.”

Jory stared at her, solemn and searching for a long, long moment, and eventually resigned himself to being her accomplice. “Pick the dagger back up, Jory,” she softly instructed, indicating the hidden blade he’d drawn on her when she startled him from his sleep, and pulled her long plait of her hair over her shoulder.

She rode out in ringmail and boiled leather, hair cropped to her nape and half-helm pulled down to shield her brow and eyes. It was hardly surprising when she was met on the road two days later by her Uncle Benjen and his wife, Dacey, an assembly of Mormont soldiers at their back. She had gotten Jory to promise not to give her away to her parents, her uncles were still free game.

Uncle Benjen was frank and to the point, leveling her a look that was half-amused, half-proud. Still, he kept her cover in front of Lady Dacey and her men, calling her “lad” and “pup” the way he would her brothers. “You’re skilled with that sword, pup, but you’re untested. You haven’t seen real battle yet.”

Her blood heated with temper, Sansa nearly retorted that Benjen hadn’t seen battle either, but then she remembered her uncle had spent the Rebellion defending the North’s western coast against reaver attacks. Instead, she bit her tongue as Benjen continued.

“I’m sending you south- Harrenhal. Ser Arthur Dayne is camped there. Your cousin Jon is being sent to squire for him, I’ve already ravened to have you do the same.”

Stunned beyond belief at the thought of fighting under the infamous Sword of the Morning, Sansa nearly missed the reference to Jon Frost, her cousin through her Aunt Lyanna’s marriage to Torrhen Frost, heir to Frostfall. Despite their blood relation, she was even less familiar with Jon than she was with Uncle Brandon’s sons (and that relationship was quite distant). Unless he was extremely dedicated to studying his future bannermen, Jon was unlikely to realize that “Brandon Stark” was only meant to be twelve.

Jon was a solemn sort of fellow, prone to brooding, taciturn silences, and his resemblance to her father in character and look endeared him to Sansa instantly. They made quick friends on the ride down to Harrenhal and added two more to their group after arriving. Robb Arryn and Gendry Baratheon were two of the near two dozen squires and pages serving Ser Arthur. Both were kin- Robb’s mother was her mother’s sister, Lysa, and Gendry’s was a Frost (Frosts and Starks had been intermarrying for so many generations no one was certain from whom the look of wolf blood had originate).

The four of them drifted together during days and days of constant training and drilling. They were good men, Robb with his charisma and jovial humor, Gendry with his good heart and steadfast loyalty, the type of men Sansa could trust with her secret when a mace to the head knocked her unconscious at BItterbridge.

“Should have suspected,” Robb quipped after the boys had sat her down to examine her injuries. “No man could be quite as stubborn as you, cousin.”

“At least you’ve a title to call her that you won’t mix up,” Gendry grumbled. “What I slip and say ‘my lady’?”

“Just say stick with Stark, Gendry,” Jon quietly concluded, tugged Sansa’s shirt back down from where he’d been checking the bruises on her back, caused by the fall she’d taken after being knocked down. “Or ‘friend’ if you’re feeling sentimental.”

Sansa had had the fortune of having a father that gently but firmly dissuaded any notion of war being glorious, was not a game. War was not something out of a song- it was blood and violence and death. Sansa Stark the girl died there on the battleground, and there Sansa Stark the woman was born, forged by blood and steel.

With so many others requiring Ser Arthur’s attention, it was near impossible to ever receive The Sword of the Morning’s personal regard. Until a day came five months after leaving Wolf’s Point, when their forces clashed with Jon Connington’s men near the ruins of Summerhall, she saved Ser Arthur from nearly being cleaved in half by a broadsword wielded by Franklyn Flowers. She received a deep wound to the shoulder in return, but more importantly, she had Ser Arthur’s attention.

Once again, her friends guarded her privacy, boxing her and the maester in a human wall of stubborn fortitude as her wounds were treated, and Robb’s charm combined with Gendry’s gold saw that her identity was kept safe between the six of them. As she healed, quickly and surely, the most common visitor beside her friends was Ser Arthur. With quiet time away from the chaos of battle, Sansa couldn’t help but appreciate Arthur Dayne as a man instead of just a warrior.

He was fierce and skilled with Dawn in his hands, bearing an authority and charisma that marked him a superior commander of men- an honorable man, just, loyal, with an undeniable kindness to deep violet eyes. Nobility marked every inch of his handsome face- an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, a chiseled jaw. Pale blonde hair fell roguishly against his forehead, silvering lightly at the temples. This was the sort of man she had envisioned when she dreamed of the knights in the songs of her childhood, the sort of man she was honored to fight for and beside…the sort of man she could easily fall in love with. But love was the absolute last thing she had come looking for when she came marching south to war.

Six months of fighting, nine since she had left home, Aegon the Pretender fell to Crown Prince Aegon’s blade, and the war was finally over. She exchanged heartfelt goodbyes with her boys, waved off japing proposals of marriage from Gendry and Robb (Robb was sweet on a bastard girl back home in the Vale, and she thought Gendry and Arya would get along brilliantly), and began the long journey north with Jon at her side.

Sansa let down her now shoulder-length curls when they neared Riverrun, entertaining her Uncle Edmure with the tale of all she’d managed as they sat down to dinner. Realizing her uncle’s penchant for gossip after a few horns of ale or wine, Sansa wouldn’t be surprised if the story of her exploits was known to just about everyone below the Neck before long. She had broken no law after all, the only danger in having her identity exposed was being sent home prematurely.

Weeks later, she returned home to her proud but scolding father, her mother’s tears, Arya’s envy, and her brothers’ awe. She was just getting settled back in old routines when a great palfrey caparisoned in Dayne lilac and silver came riding through the gate. The rider bore a great ironwood shield bearing a red direwolf on a snow-white field, the idea of a personal sigil she and Ser Arthur had half-seriously discussed one of those afternoons in her tent.

Perhaps there could be time for love after all.


End file.
